Clemence held out eloquent hands. “Does he ever come? He’s a man, soon going to college, and you are only ‘kids.’ I’m older than he is really; a woman is always older than a man, but he doesn’t like me. We are not en rapport.” Clemence tried hard to suppress a smirk of self-consciousness at the use of the French term, while the two younger sisters jeered and booed with the callous brutality of their kind.

“Ha, ha! aren’t we fine? Roll your r’s a little more next time, my dear. It will sound miles better. Your accent leaves much to be desired. Aren’t we grown-up to-day? Aunt Maria would be impressed! A little stay in Paris just to put on the accent, and it’s wonderful to think of what you might do! En rapport! Bet you daren’t say that to Dan! Dare you to tell him that you are not en rapport!”

Clemence was seized with agitation, discerning through the innocent words a thinly veiled threat. If she didn’t, Darsie would!

“Darsie!” she cried loudly. “You mustn’t tell; you must not! It’s mean. Only sneaky children repeat what is said in private. Promise this minute that you won’t say a word!”

But Darsie, like her brothers, was keenly alive to the privilege of holding a rod in pickle over an elder member of the family. So long as Clemence lived in fear of humiliating disclosure, so long might she herself walk in safety, free from rebuffs. She laid her head on one side and smiled sweetly into her sister’s face.

“I shouldn’t like exactly, positively, to promise, don’t you know, for I am such a creature of impulse. If it rushed over me suddenly, it might pop out, don’t you know, bang! before I knew what I was about! Of course, on the other hand, I might not—”

“Very well,” snapped Clemence sharply, “then I stay at home! It would be no fun for me to go for a picnic with that sort of thing hanging over my head all the time. I know very well how you’d behave—rolling your eyes across the table, and beginning half-sentences, and introducing ‘en rapport’ every other moment. If I’m going to be made miserable, I’ll be miserable at home. You can go to our last picnic as an undivided family without me, the eldest of the family, and I only hope you’ll enjoy it; that’s all!”

“Oh, Darsie!” pleaded Lavender tragically, moved almost to tears by the pathos of those last words, and Darsie shrugged her shoulders, philosophically accepting her defeat.

“All right, I promise! I’ll hug the remembrance 

 Prev. P 23/208 next